


all the fears you hold so dear (turn to whisper in your ear)

by trashsshi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Apocalypse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, KaiBaek - Freeform, M/M, WARNING: cannibalism, also comment if you don't, chaiyya chaiyya, comment if you get that reference, exogeddon '18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:10:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashsshi/pseuds/trashsshi
Summary: Baekhyun travels the world on the top of trains, watching the apocalypse. Somewhere along the way, Jongin joins him.[Prompt #231]





	all the fears you hold so dear (turn to whisper in your ear)

**Author's Note:**

> the Mods made a trailer for this fic! it's gorgeous and so apt; it incorporates little details from the fic and I just <3333 watch it here: https://twitter.com/exogeddonfest/status/1047654378382024704

Baekhyun perches on the train, his knees drawn up to his chin, his toes curled like talons. He rocks from side to side, but isn’t dislodged. He folds his hands- on his knees, under his chin- and sticks his elbows out, for balance. Occasionally, he hums. 

Funny how everything around is being razed to the ground and everyone is dying, but the trains still run on time. 

“I passed through the tunnel, of time I spent longing for you, and I found another chance to return to you-” He’s interrupted by his stomach, growling to be fed. It’ll have to wait until the next station. 

When the train finally slows down, he leaps off, landing on his haunches. His satchel slaps against his side as he makes his frantic way through the field- the tall stalks could catch fire any moment. 

Gingerly, he steps among the rubble of what would have been, until recently, a settlement. Small, out-of-the-way, probably a nice little village. He can tell from the large wooden beams that lie tragically like mere logs- they evoke a mental picture of identical old-world cottages with tidy little gardens, their inhabitants old-world people who pottered personally among the flowerbeds and wished their neighbours good morning. One of their hands is splayed out from under a pile of beam, brickwork and roof slats.

Carefully, Baekhyun brings out his knife and nicks the thumb. The hand doesn’t twitch; there’s no sound from under all those heavy house parts. He slashes the wrist quickly, holding his pot under the indiscriminate flow of blood. He cuts off the fingers, removes the nails and slices them into neat little pieces, adding them to the pot. Thankfully, one of the fallen beams has splintered, so he doesn’t have to go gathering firewood. He puts together a few dusty bricks, lights a fire after half an hour or so of ceaseless trying, then places the pot on the bricks to cook. 

Once his hunger has been attended to, Baekhyun sprints back before he catches fire or the train leaves. If he misses the train he’ll have to find shelter around here until the next one passes. It’s only open fields surrounding, and there’s a tree here and there but trees are very prone to lightning. It would be nice if he could find a broken-down car somewhere, but out here in the far depths of the countryside, cars are uncommon to come by. Staying out in the open is a bad, bad idea; the very last of last resorts. 

Abruptly aware that he’s muttering these things aloud in-between ragged breaths, he concentrates on just breathing and running. Ordinarily, he switches to humming, like thinking with a background score; but right now he needs all his breath for running. He has long decided that it’s better to hum than to talk to himself. He won’t deny himself humming, just for the sake of a _semblance_ of some _notion_ of normalcy- as though such notions can still be held on to. It’s difficult enough, going through the world alone with nobody to talk to, only coming across people when they’re dead because nobody ventures out anymore or opens up to strangers if they’re still alive. Sometimes he talks to the dead. Usually if they’re skeletons, steeped in ash or picked clean by vultures, so he won’t be eating them anyway. But he doesn’t want to lose it; he doesn't want to talk to himself. 

Too often he thinks he can’t keep going. It’s a constant tightrope walk. He’s always toeing the edge, careening, feet on the cliff but chin over, heels off the ground, trembling on tiptoe, flailing- then balancing again. Elbows out. Toes curled. Better not to think. All he needs to do is avoid being struck down. Better just focus on that, on making it in time- and he has, today. Isn’t he lucky. 

“Thank god,” he wheezes, clambering on top of the train. He lies on his side, folds in on himself like a foetus. 

The world darkens around him, and sometimes, something blazes in the darkness. Large silhouettes fall and distantly, people’s cries rend the air. But there’s not much noise. Not when he thinks of just a couple of months ago, the ruination of whole cities. Not much noise, or maybe it somehow sounds far away even when it actually isn't. He shuts his eyes and starts humming.

* * *

When he wakes, he leans back carefully on his palms, the wobble of the train juddering up his arms; watches the dawn seep through the sky. And wonder seeps through his body, because he is seeing another morning. Somehow. 

The train halts in the middle of nowhere. It’s even more of a nowheresville than the countryside, and that’s saying something. The station is a slab of cement that barely warrants the title of a single platform. 

Baekhyun gets off. Breakfast, the most important meal of the day, etcetera. It's only woodlands all around, which he really doesn’t like; too many vulnerable trees and probably wild animals and no people; high-risk, low-returns. But he has no choice. Sighing, he walks right into the woods. There's no path. He thinks of breaking off a branch and dragging it across the forest floor or marking each tree he passes with the jagged jut of a stone, but he’d alert potential prey. He has to advance as though he doesn’t exist. Mark the way back in his own mind. Thankfully it’s not too long before he spots a rabbit and brings it down with his sling. It’s a rare bit of luck. A branch for a spit, dead leaves for a fire, and after some work with his knife, he’s able to roast it to eat. It’s too tough and chewy. He feels like one of those tigers, those maneaters- once he’s tasted human flesh he can barely swallow anything else. The only reason he persists is that, while one part of him knows he’s just going to die, another irrational part deep down believes that one day it’s all somehow going to blow over and be all right again, and he’s going to be all right, he’s going to go back to a normal life. It’s fucking stupid. 

He escapes the forest as soon as he can. The train is stationed for a while. That's bad- if he’s going to be a target he’d rather be a moving one- but once more, he has no choice. Thankfully, it begins moving again as darkness falls. He hunches up against the cold, closes his eyes and starts humming a wordless lullaby. Around him, there are blazing buildings, tumbling towers, lightning that is independent of any storm; somebody’s nightmares are coming true. The next day, he will wake up, and wonder why he’s still alive; that little fragment of irrationality will glint deep down, telling him it’s a sign, that he doesn’t continue living for nothing. And the trains will rattle on, the nightmares will continue, but they won’t be so scary now, when they're held up to the daylight. 

* * *

He should’ve known. It doesn’t make any sense, he thinks feverishly, almost delirious; even so, he should’ve suspected. It never occurred to him that he should get on a train rather than on top like usual, because there’s no way he could purchase a ticket, and being in a closed space like a compartment would be difficult to escape in the event that an orchestrated death sentence decided to descend on him, like the train going off the rails, or someone’s luggage exploding with fatal results, or the ticket collector suddenly turning serial killer, or… 

At any rate, he has learnt a thing or two by now, about surviving in the present climate: first, you’re less likely to get struck down if you’re rapidly moving in an open space. Second, closed spaces are prime locations for people to be struck down. If you need shelter, you need to choose one that’s preferably open on most sides so that you can escape it easily. Gazebo-like structures are best. Most of all, though, one has to take stock of the immediate local conditions. If everything around is being struck down by lightning, it’s a good idea to get into a car even if it’s stationary, closing you in and broken down in the middle of open space. Don’t get into a building even if you see it has a lightning rod; it could be reduced to rubble while you’re still in it. If there are many people gathered at a place, avoid it like the plague; there will probably be a bombing or a shootout. Try to live apart from other people and minimise contact, to avoid contracting fatal diseases- and so on and so forth. Everywhere you go, everyone is vulnerable. But some places (and apparently, some people) less so than others. 

He mutters feverishly to himself, repeating all the patterns he has noticed, all the strategic courses of action he has devised according to circumstances, as though that'll somehow explain what he's seeing while darting through the train, eyes darting all aflicker. He’ll allow it this time. Humming won’t be enough. He knows what it’s like to be in shock. He can feel it creeping up on him. He’ll talk himself through his half-delirium. 

He’d considered everything before deciding he’d become a nomad on a train-top, and see how far that would get him (that his brain can still think of puns while he’s in such a state is strangely reassuring, as though he hasn’t lost it as much as he’s afraid he has). Even so, he should’ve known, he thinks as he rushes from compartment to compartment only to find them all empty, as he enters the driver’s compartment and finds no engine driver- he should’ve expected something like this. It doesn’t make any sense, and yet it makes perfect sense.

Once he’s back on top of the train, he curls up and tries to sleep, but can’t. Hugging himself, humming to himself, is suddenly scant comfort. He tries not to feel like he’s got a compartmentful of ghosts under him, monsters under his bed; the sound of wheel against flange their old, rattling breaths; rocking him into a sleep he won’t wake from.

* * *

Clouds skitter across the washed-out sky. Swirling, eddying, they spread so fast that they tear apart. Baekhyun glimpses a worrying darkness every time they dissever. 

The winds wail like a siren. He has to lie flat on his face, stretched across, with his satchel pinioned under his stomach. His hands try to find purchase as they claw the side of the train-top, his feet over the opposite side, shins pressing against the edge. He shuts his stinging eyes. His skin is too taut, too numb, and he feels like someone is dragging him back by the hair. It’s almost more than he can manage, barely holding on. He only realizes he’s hardly been breathing when the wind finally flags for a moment, so that he can swing himself into the carriage and get into a compartment. He slides the door behind him, closing it off. The next minute the thick glass of the window is throbbing with the force of the gale. He pulls up his knees and hums, but the gale is so loud, even after shutting it out like this, he has to stuff a finger in each ear to hear himself hum. It's so difficult being in a closed space, even though he knows he's the safest here in the current circumstances, even though he knows the Forces of Mass Destruction are busy elsewhere for a change, busy working the wind, lashing people to death with it. 

He peeps under the bunk, despite rationalizing that there'll be nothing there. The wind completely drowns their invisible breaths, lashes them ruthlessly. Their ectoplasms are scattered with the wind, like the scattering of ashes; a funeral of sorts. There's nothing there, and the wind is still going strong. He's safe. 

So why does he wish for someone to be with him, even though it would increase his chances of getting struck down? Why does he wish for visible breath, for someone warm and alive he could curl himself into? 

* * *

The sun beats down with the ruthless, dry heat of a desert. Baekhyun stays in the compartment. Returning to the roof now would feel like being desiccated from within. 

He draws the curtains and stretches out on the berth in nothing but his shorts. He feels like he's being baked in here, but resists the urge to try for some ventilation. Once in a while he opens a chink in the curtains and squints. When the sun finally goes down, he returns to the roof with massive relief.

* * *

One day, Baekhyun experiences the longest tunnel he’s ever been through. He hums through it. He's utterly dazzled when the train emerges on the other side, his eyes snapping shut to protect his dilated pupils. When he's able to open them again, he sees someone on the roof with him. The hum dies with a flutter in his throat, like singed dragonfly wings. 

The stranger meets his gaze and holds it before he whips around, sweeping an arc with one leg. Both toes are pointed and off the ground for a few heart-stopping seconds before he lands gracefully. Too gracefully- the train is moving under his feet but he doesn’t sway while planting them on it. If not for the momentary tightening of the muscles in his tan shoulders, Baekhyun would think balance came effortlessly to him. 

Barefoot, the stranger pads towards him. 

"Okay if I dance here?" he says, flashing a smile. 

His voice is like the hum of metal, the hum that comes after you strike a gong- after the clang and before the silence. It can be felt in the air, a tangible throb. Baekhyun exhales, drawn-out, his mouth falling naturally into a soft pout. The other's smile flags a little. 

"Sure," says Baekhyun, all thoughts of safety in (the lack of) numbers out of the window. If the stranger speaks, Baekhyun won't have to hum. If he dances, Baekhyun can forget the danger brewing in the sky, lurking in the trees, spreading with the dust and soot of recent destruction, shuddering up his limbs and choking up his lungs. Forget everything and just watch him for a while. 

"What's your name?" Baekhyun says drowsily. He catches the split-second hesitation that crosses the stranger's face before he replies, "Kai." Another flash of that confident, almost impudent smile. 

"I'm Baekhyun." 

Kai pulls out the hem of the loincloth gathered up between his legs, tucks the folds more firmly at his hip and walks towards him. Baekhyun is mesmerized by his bare feet. His soles aren't cracked, and his toenails are clean crescents. 

Kai crouches down in front of him. Baekhyun huddles smaller, feeling dirty, shriveled up. He wonders why he doesn't want to flinch away. Why he can't look away. As though the vision in front of him would disappear if he did. 

"Nice to meet you, Baekhyun." 

It's nice to meet you too, Baekhyun thinks, wide-eyed. Already hopeless. 

* * *

When the train halts at the next stop, Baekhyun doesn't feel up to the effort of going to look for food. Kai has been dancing continuously, midday heat notwithstanding, yet he hasn't even broken a sweat. He's not wearing much, but it's still preposterous. 

"Do you have a spare cloth?" Baekhyun warbles weakly. "I'd like to be half naked like you, please." 

"No, but you can lounge around in your underwear. I don't mind," winks Kai. 

Baekhyun huffs out a laugh. "I think I'll just take my shirt off, thanks." 

He lifts his shirt off his head, arching his back on purpose, and pretends he doesn't notice the way Kai's eyes rove over the inches of skin as they're revealed. He wipes off the sweat from his face and neck with the shirt before throwing it aside. "Come on. Food." 

"Yeah," says Kai, sounding flat, zoned out. He seems to come to when Baekhyun lowers himself off the roof and struggles to find footing, because he bounds forward to help, holding Baekhyun's hand so that he can jump from lower than he usually does and land lighter on his feet. Baekhyun wants to curl into his palm and stay there, fortified between two palm lines; in that relaxed state of anticipating sleep but not actively wooing it. But first, food. 

"Are you coming?" calls Baekhyun from the ground. 

"Not hungry," says Kai. 

"Come on," says Baekhyun, stretching his hand out for the other to take. He sees that hesitance again, passing across Kai's face like the ripple in the air from a hummingbird's wing. It's gone so fast he's not entirely sure he really saw it, and then Kai's warm hand is in his, some of his weight tightening Baekhyun's arm when he's jumping off; and then he's next to him, hand still in his. That's how they begin walking. Hand in hand. Baekhyun's palm is sticky with sweat. But Kai's is cool, smooth like his soles, his fingers filling the gaps in Baekhyun's fingers, gaps Baekhyun didn't know he needed filled. 

* * *

Baekhyun's back is a comma, like his hair. But even after hunching in on himself he's not quite warm enough. He imagines he's asleep in Kai's palm. Imagines Kai's palm closing over him, into warmth and darkness, into safety. Like a womb. 

"Night," comes Kai's voice softly, from behind him. Baekhyun flips over, and is almost nose to nose with him. He has his arm folded under his head and eyes already closed. 

Baekhyun wasn't aware that Kai would interpret being allowed to dance on the roof as being allowed to travel with him. But if he's being honest, that's how he meant it when he agreed to it, even if he didn't explicitly say so. He knows from long experience that he won't fall off the side of the train in his sleep, but with Kai occupying the space next to him, he's got a lot less room to maneuver and he isn't so sure anymore. He doesn't know why Kai doesn't simply sleep above or below him. 

Kai opens his eyes. His gaze is too steady and clear for him to have been asleep just before. Baekhyun feels an odd little jolt that has nothing to do with the bumpiness of riding the train. 

"Night," he says, and turns his back to Kai. 

* * *

"Are we going to eat him, too?" Kai peers interestedly into the dead man's face and boops him on the nose. 

"What are you doing?" laughs Baekhyun. 

He remembers the first time they went to find food together, hands intertwined. He thought Kai would leave him then. And part of him wanted that. Part of him was afraid of Kai's company- and not just because of the increased probability of being struck down. But Kai had stayed. Had watched Baekhyun collect blood and dice human flesh. Baekhyun had sneaked glances at him from underneath his overgrown fringe, but wasn't able catch a flicker of unease, disgust, or anything else pass over his face. Kai had simply looked. 

"I mean if we're going to eat him, only polite to greet him first," quips Kai, booping the dead guy again. 

Baekhyun laughs and swats at his shoulder. "Oh my god. Stop! That's weird." 

"Admit it," Kai waggles his eyebrows. "You're charmed." 

"Am not!" 

"My table manners turn you on." 

"Do not!" 

Kai boops Baekhyun, who scrunches his nose and laughs. Baekhyun sees Kai's smile widen impossibly, dark eyes twinkling- and in the next moment, flag. As though, on second thoughts, he's pulling it back. So Baekhyun bops his nose against Kai's, laughs right into his eyes, tugging up that smile with both hands and with his heart.

* * *

He really feels like he's going to fall off. He doesn't turn much in his sleep, but he feels like he's going to roll over the edge and that's keeping him from dropping off. 

"You asleep? Or counting sheep?" He doesn't try to say it softly. If he's sleeping, he wants the cause of all this to wake the fuck up. It's only fair.

Kai shifts, propping himself up by the elbow, shoulder supporting his head. A lock of dark hair swings forward to rest on his forehead. "What's up?" 

"Why do you sleep next to me when there's not enough space?" Baekhyun pouts in the dark, lowkey disappointed he didn't wake Kai from a deep, sweet-dream-filled slumber. 

"Well..." 

Baekhyun can see the white of his teeth. 

"Can't sleep above you in case I fart, can't sleep below you in case you fart." 

Baekhyun snorts. 

"What was that? Did you just fart?" 

"Oh fuck _off_." 

They laugh together, and it's very comfortable, suddenly. 

"I don't mind sleeping away from you though," Kai says seriously, after a moment's silence. But Baekhyun just realized Kai's body blocks much of the chilly wind from that side and therefore this sleeping arrangement, contrary to previous belief, is to his advantage. 

"No, this is fine." 

"You sure?" 

"Yeah." Baekhyun turns his back on him. Kai sighs into sleep. Baekhyun listens. 

When he hears his breathing even out, he flips over again and watches Kai's face in sleep. It's for warmth, he'll swear. Putting his back to the chill and face to the warmth. Curling his limbs in front of him, into that warmth, of the solidness of body heat and the tangibility of living breath. When daylight hits, he'll flip over again. Flip over to the heat of the sun. Before Kai wakes up to Baekhyun curled into the solid warmth of his palm, between the laugh lines that fortify him, traced over by Kai's living breath. 

* * *

"She might've just dropped dead of an heart attack." 

"But we don't know that," argues Baekhyun. "It could've been a heart attack. Or it could've been some invisible insidious mutating virus that doesn't leave any outward traces of illness. Or whatever nature's been devising recently to fuck with us." 

"To kill us," Kai corrects. 

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. "Technicalities." 

"Can we snitch her clothes, at least? Or are you afraid of those too?" 

"Plague victims' clothes were burned," says Baekhyun vaguely. "Also, you don't need clothes." He lets his gaze linger on Kai's gorgeously sculpted torso, before bringing his eyes up to his and wetting his lips, turning away just as the other's gaze darkens. 

He goes through the victim's pockets. "Okay, we're taking these." He passes Kai an unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter after he checks for residual fuel. Kai puts them in the satchel. Later, Baekhyun smokes one, squatting on the roof. The smoke flies back in his face. He holds his breath in an exhale every time it does. Drag, exhale, hold; he sets a rhythm like that of the train. Kai's sharp movements slice through the wisps. Kai has a rhythm all his own. 

* * *

Baekhyun can't help his conviction; that had been the defining moment. Taking a drag of his cigarette, and offering it to Kai. He'd never seen Kai smoke, so if you asked him why, he wouldn't have been able to explain himself. Not very well, anyway. He has a vague idea that it had been some kind of gesture. Of their camaraderie. Of their together-ness. He'd explained it all to Kai, including the safety-in-solitude, but nothing had changed after that- they'd come to a sort of mutual disregard of optimal survival strategies without really hashing it out. That's what the cigarette was- an acknowledgement. The gesture that counted. Here they were in the middle of an open field, whiling the time away as though they weren't begging for it to burn out in one drag. Kai sitting on the fence, and Baekhyun leaning on the post next to him, smoking. Still targets out in the open. The ultimate disregard. The timing was just right. 

But when he'd held the cigarette out, he'd seen it. A flash of panic before Kai's face, his eyes, had completely closed up. Almost as though he'd known what would happen, as though he'd known there could be no stopping it because it would happen in a split-second of a split-second. One moment Baekhyun was holding out a cigarette after taking the first drag, the next, it had burned right down to his fingers. A cry of pain, and he dropped it. A split-second of a split-second- the field was on fire. It was all around him. The back of his shirt had a hole scorched through from the fence. Flames licked at his feet as he skittered and stumbled, trying to avoid them. 

And now he's stopped trying. He can't even fight, not any longer. He can't breathe. He's all smoke from the inside out. He can't move. On his knees in the eye of the circle of fire that keeps closing in on him. This was a long time coming, but it just isn't fair. He can't breathe for the smoke. He can't breathe for crying. Of all the ways... to burn alive is too damn painful. He should've just toppled off the train onto the tracks and been run over. Of _all_ the fucking _ways_. 

Kai is nowhere to be seen. He can't even see him once before he goes up in smoke. It just isn't fair. 

And then he's right next to him. Kai is. Baekhyun doesn't believe it, because he must be imagining it, hallucinating out of the sheer force of his desperation; because it doesn't make any sense, how would Kai just disappear and then appear in the middle of raging fire, appear right when he thinks of him, thinks of him so passionately it's a blaze; and it makes even less sense because his eyes are streaming and he can't see shit but he can see Kai so clearly he can only be a vision. But even if it isn't real Baekhyun doesn't care, because Kai is crouching down and his feet are clean of soot and there's no fire reflected in those beloved eyes, only Baekhyun fills them; and then Kai has his mouth pressed firmly to his, Kai is breathing into him, breathing life into him, and he's out of air, he is nothing but air from the inside out, floating, shaking, trembling with the throb of Kai's voice, his voice the thrum of hummingbird wings. 

* * *

Kai's warm palm makes circles on his back as he dry heaves from the smoke and from his sobs. Kai's mouth slots on his insistently, huffing air into him, grounding him in those moments. But the tears don't stop. The tear-tracks in the soot- the tear-tracks are constantly fresh. 

Kai wipes the soot off with warm, gentle swipes of his thumb, cupping Baekhyun's face. 

Kai wipes the tears off his face. 

* * *

That night, Baekhyun doesn't turn his back on him in sleep. He stays, nose-to-nose with Kai. After a while Kai puts his arm around him, palm warm on the small of his back, and Baekhyun doesn't feel like he could fall off. The weight of Kai's palm, of his breath, ground him. He's stable. He isn't humming. 

After a while he speaks, voice still scratchy from the smoke- speaks from that relaxed state of anticipating sleep but not actively wooing it- "Are you asleep?" 

Kai makes a small noise at the back of his throat. The air quivers with the weight of it. 

"Tell me about yourself," says Baekhyun, letting his eyelids droop as though he's asked for a bedtime story. Kai's eyes widen in surprise before that broad, easy smile reappears.

"My dance teacher told me to dance until the end of the world. Until the day I die." A chuckle, so soft, but it can knock him off his bearings like a hurricane. "I guess I'm taking it literally." 

Baekhyun hums. It flicks lightly against his teeth, nothing more. 

"Someday... I hope I'll be able to stop." 

He sounds so sad that Baekhyun says, "Why?" 

Kai's silent for so long that Baekhyun says instead, "Why can't you stop?" 

Baekhyun can see Kai's white teeth bared in a grin, but now it's too dark to see the look in his eyes. "If I stop, there's gonna be cosmic chaos. The world needs my art." 

Baekhyun snorts. The air barely budges, in his opinion. "I'm too sleepy for this." 

"Sleep tight, Baekhyun." The words are warm, settling on him like a protective mantle. 

"Night," says Baekhyun, the corners of his mouth lifting. Someone's nightmares will be coming true through the night- but they won't be his. 

* * *

Kai suspects it was always meant to happen this way. Cutting and creating flurries of wind, the deathly precision of his movements, that feeling of control when really it's all out of his control- he can't stop and it couldn't have been stopped, ever, all of it's hopeless- but Baekhyun is the light. After the tunnel, after the darkness disappears, Baekhyun is there, Baekhyun is the light. He's emaciated, birdlike, all hardened edges and sharp at the corners but his mouth is soft. Kai didn't predict, then, that he'd fall in love. With the slight downturn of his eyes, the slight downturn of his mouth. He should've predicted, when he decided to stay by his side and simultaneously decided not to think about what a bad idea that was; should've seen it for what it was, yet one more thing all out of his control, one more deadly, devastating thing. 

But it was a conscious decision- not to think. 

Not to think about Baekhyun asking him his name. Not to think about his lie, Kai. Not to think about how even back then, when they'd first met, he couldn't simply tell him- my name is Jongin, a cruel joke by the higher gods, my name implies I'm a container of benevolence, but in truth, I would dance you to death- not to think about how even back then his instinct was to shield him. Not to think about Baekhyun bopping noses with him. Laughing right into his eyes. And stepping away the split-second of a split-second before he broke, before he would've dipped his head down and kissed him, out of control, it's all out of his control. Not to think about Baekhyun's voice, a current through the universe. When he hums. When he sighs, exhales, the slight downturn of his mouth. When he laughs. Not to think about Baekhyun's sylphlike waist, the startling swell of his hips; not to think about Baekhyun taking a pinch of soot and outlining his eyes with it, turning his gaze on Kai, burning his gaze into his soul; not to think about waking up to the curve of Baekhyun's back every day, and then- one day- to his face, to the slight downturn of his mouth, slack in sleep. Not to think. 

What he wouldn't give not to think. He can't stop thinking, ever since the fire, it's all out of his control. He can't stop fucking thinking about it. Baekhyun holding out a cigarette between slender, dainty fingers. It felt like it meant so much. Like it was a token to everything they'd had, everything they were and could be. But it was burning away before his eyes- everything they'd had- and he needed to stop before he was even _more_ in over his head- he needed to stop- Baekhyun needed to die- he needed to stop- stop- STOP- 

He wipes away his own tears with shaky hands, and begins to dance. It doesn't do anything to keep the thoughts at bay. But it feels like a surrender. A surrender to movement, to being the harbinger. He can't believe he was once on the threshold of telling Baekhyun that he was dancing for him. In being unable to tell him he was his love, he was terribly driven to tell him he was his muse. He hadn't stepped over the threshold, into yet another lie. But he can't believe he'd come so close. To telling Baekhyun about cosmic chaos and it all being out of his control. Why did he entertain the idea that it might be of comfort to him? So what if it's the end of a yuga, if the world will begin with a clean slate, if the very fundamentals of how the world works will change; what's a total reset but an erasure of previous sins, those of humans and those of gods? What does it matter, when Baekhyun is going to die? What does it matter that his voice is the current of the universe if the universe matters so little? What does it matter, this love of lightyears? 

He whips around, his tears flying back with the wind. His movements falter in their deathly precision, but not enough. He wishes Baekhyun would knock him off kilter with the force of his voice, still him with the current of the universe. He wishes for just one moment of deathly imprecision, one fatal mistake of balance, so he may fall and be killed on the tracks, but he finishes dancing and there is none, not so much as a split-second of a split-second. 

He goes back to Baekhyun's side. Lies down facing him. Around them the world is going up in flames. Large silhouttes fall, people crawl, they cry and collapse. He's blind to it, numb to it, in much the same way Baekhyun is out cold and cannot be roused by it; except Baekhyun's sleep is the sleep of the innocent. If he's being really greedy- in the way that someone grasps at life and love after entering an irrevocable suicide pact- then he'd pray for time to freeze in this moment. And he's greedy as hell. But the only hope he dares to grasp is that smallest of mercies, that he be able to stay by Baekhyun's side- if not until the end, then at least during. 

Someday trains won't take him far enough. Someday he'll have to cross the oceans. He’ll lightly tread the water, dance the waves, create ripples when his movements sluice the wind. Someday he’ll come back full circle and find Baekhyun again. Someday he’ll reunite with him only to be separated again, tearing them apart with his own hands. 

Someday he’ll kill Baekhyun. 

Kai watches him as well as he can in the dark. As well as he can. Not well enough. The curled up fingers, the line of his jaw, the jut of his hips. He envisions the slight downturn of his eyes, outlined with soot and burning into him with their brilliance, and thinks, I’ll dance you to death last of all. He thinks about trying to tell Baekhyun about it when the time comes, telling him, "You’re my whole world- literally." Baekhyun would snort. The corners of his mouth would lift, press back into his cheek. He remembers telling Baekhyun that he takes things literally. He'd been telling a lie when he'd unwittingly told him a truth. He can't stop fucking thinking about it. He doesn't want to think about it- about when he starts dancing. Not to think not to think not to think about when he starts dancing- will Baekhyun watch or won’t he? Not to think- but he won't want him to watch, but will Baekhyun listen? Will the wind blow Kai's tears into his face? Will Kai be utterly parched of tears by then? Would they have hardened within him by then, eternally crystallized? Why can't he stop thinking and just fucking sleep? Sleep like the dead, never think again?

Kai watches Baekhyun sleeping and wonders if he’ll look just like this when he’s dead. The thought makes him cold. He pulls him close, the birdlike figure, so inert. He encircles him, feeling Baekhyun’s heartbeat against his chest- it hurts. 

He puts his lips to his temple. Baekhyun doesn't wake.

Kai's heart is pounding, faster and faster with panic- as though it's draining Baekhyun's pulse and transferring it to him, slowing it down to speed his up; draining it in one long drag of a cigarette, one long draught of blood. Kai screams. To rip the world apart with his raw pain. He screams because it isn't going to wake Baekhyun anyway.

The world tears asunder with such violence that he should hurt more for it, he should really care, but he doesn't. He knows it isn't going to wake Baekhyun. He screams until he knows the world won't continue turning. That's only right. For the current of the universe isn't flowing anymore.

He puts his lips to Baekhyun's temple. The uncontrollable quiver of his lips gets no answering, fragile flutter. He murmurs incoherently against it, creating his own answer; the sound of the universe's conception.

He puts his lips to Baekhyun's temple, closes his eyes and prays.  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading my fic! i know this isn't a typical take on apocalypse and idk if i pulled it off. my hindu mythology enthusiast self couldn't resist the loose inspiration.  
> i'm really grateful to my betas, @hyunnieandtea and @candyxiumin- you're the best! i'm not a native english speaker and i know that didn't make it any easier for you. thank you to the prompter- i hope i did your prompt justice ;_; you asked for a rarepair though and i was only too happy to serve, so i'm happy with at least that aspect <3  
> here's to this round *raises vial of tears* *clinks*


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